


dancing in the daffodils

by pastasaucer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Character Death, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Oops this is sad, Slow Burn, au based off of the book they both die at the end, future tags to be added, if that can happen in a day lol, keith and lance have a day left to live
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 05:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15503847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastasaucer/pseuds/pastasaucer
Summary: Dying sucks. Especially when the guy you're spending your last day alive with is kind of a total moron.[or, theThey Both Die at the EndAU that no one asked for.]





	dancing in the daffodils

**Author's Note:**

> for context: this is an AU based off of the book _They Both Die at the End _by Adam Silvera, involving _Death-Cast _, a service that calls someone around midnight of the day they're going to die. (you don't need to have read the book to understand, but i highly recommend it if you're looking for a good read!)____

 

**KEITH**

**12:02 AM**

 

He knew he shouldn’t have let Shiro buy him that phone.

 

Granted, his old one had been a Nokia snagged from a  _Best Buy_ bargain bin, and  _yes,_ okay, he had used it since he got it as a birthday gift one year in middle school, but it let him text, call— hell, it even took pictures—and Keith had been perfectly content with using it.

But  _no,_ Keith,  _why don’t you just get a smartphone_ , Keith,  _here let me buy it for you even though you seem completely happy with your current situation_ , Keith _._

It’s not like he uses his phone that often anyways.  When Allura wasn’t giving him shit for his old phone she was berating him for leaving it at home so often.

It always rested on the corner of his desk, forgotten, racking up messages from a grand total of three out of the four contacts he had.

Now, however, he finds himself staring down at the default lock screen he never bothered to change; a wallpaper, however, that he doesn’t remember being so blurry—

Oh. Fuck. Wait.

It’s his hands, trembling so badly the phone might slip between his fingertips.  Actually, his entire  _body_ is shaking.

This isn’t supposed to happen.

And look, okay, he knows it isn’t the phone’s fault.  Keith knows it isn’t the phone’s fault, because he’s read the stories—  _everyone_ has read the stories— about getting the call from a payphone or a friend’s home-phone or the phone at the library somebody’s studying at and Jesus Christ he  _hates_ that stupid phone.

( _This isn’t supposed to happen_.)

The screen lights up again, just like the first time.  He feels the vibrations in his fingertips as the loud, unsuspecting jingle fills the air.

He wants to laugh.

He wants to do a lot of things, actually, like maybe chuck his phone against the wall until it shatters into a million tiny, itty bitty pieces that can never be put back together, which is ironic, because the flimsiness and breakability of smartphones were always the things he hated most about them.

(He should have kept the goddamn Nokia.)

But to laugh— the irrational desire to laugh, to cry, to just  _expel_ fills his chest, burning, because really, this has to be one big joke, right?

He chokes on a sob.

There were so, so many times in Keith Kogane’s life when he expected to get the call from Death-Cast.

After Dad died.  Those weeks he spent on the streets.  Bouncing around from home to home, wondering how much longer it could all go on before… before it’d end with that godforsaken ringtone.

He waited and waited and waited and it  _never came_ , so he told himself maybe, just maybe it didn’t have to. (Obviously it would, eventually, but suddenly, it seemed so  _far_   _away_ )

Maybe that’s why it seemed like a dream, sitting on his bed and listening to the noise from the city drift inside through the cracked window as he studied (Shiro always scolded him for using it instead of his actual desk) when the phone buzzed to life across the room and that insufferable ringtone filled the air. Some distorted, twisted, nightmare of a dream that left his mouth dry and a chill sweeping over his skin.

The side of his body had slammed against the floor as he flew from his bed. He had stared at the caller ID for less than a second before declining the call, legs collapsing beneath him.

And there was that smallest sliver of hope that maybe he had imagined it all and it was a mere figment of his mind, spurred by a lack of sleep, an overdose of coffee, and an overexposure to his dull textbooks, but now—

(It’s not funny.  It’s the exact opposite of funny, actually, but why can’t he stop laughing?)

Maybe Keith could just let it ring itself out, wait for the voicemail he can delete and forget about, pretend like nothing ever happened—  _maybe it’s just a fluke it has to be a fluke_ — but he’s no idiot.

God, you can ignore it, but it’s not like it’ll stop anything.

Keith could throw his phone out the window and it wouldn’t change a thing, because Death-Cast is calling him  _today_.

Because he is twenty-one years old and Keith Kogane is dying  _today_.

Pressing talk, it feels as if his body is moving through water.

“Hello. This is Death-Cast calling. My name is Axca. Is Keith Kogane there?” The voice is low, but distinctly feminine.

He cannot find his words.

“Hello?”

This is too real.

“Keith?”

Static fills his ears.

“I’m dying,” he says. It feels as if his head is dunked under water.  

A beat of silence, then: “Can you stay calm for me?”

He is numb. Blank.

Keith stifles a giggle.

Dead.

She’s saying something but he can’t hear.  His entire body feels like it’s burning, on fire, nerve endings frayed.

“—I’m  _dying_ ,” he repeats, cutting the herald off.

There’s a heavy pause, before, “Keith, I need you to—”

“What, calm down?” He shakes his head. “Yeah, of course.  I have tons of time to do that, don’t I?” He laughs, but his chest is burning and his vision is blurring with tears. “Why beat around the fucking bush? I’m dying.”

( _too real_ )

He’s dead.  Gone.

He can picture the herald’s frown, the pursed lips and furrowed brow.  For some reason, he can’t help but imagine the very expression Allura gives whenever she’s irritated with him.  

“...yes, Keith,” she says, very, very carefully.

His throat feels tight, his face hot. He cannot breathe.

“But you’re not out of time,” she quickly adds. “Not yet. You still have time left to live.”

When he was fourteen, a boy at the home got the call.  Keith remembers the way the bedroom fell silent, like everyone was holding their breath, the cold pit that fell in his stomach as he watched the boy move.

He was like a robot. He answered the phone, hung up, and walked out the door. No one stopped him.

(He didn’t come back.)

Everybody heard something different— that he was hit by a car as soon as he walked outside, that he threw himself into the river, that he was mugged on the street.

It could have been ten minutes, it could have been a second before midnight.  

“Oh I bet,” he chokes out. “Yeah,  _so_ much time.”

There was another girl, in high school.  She didn’t tell anyone— not even her parents. Just carried on like the day was completely normal, only it ended with her cracking her head open on the stairs.

“Keith, I know that—”

“Know what, exactly? What I’m feeling?  What I’m going through right now?” He scoffs.  “Of  _course_ you do. I didn’t realize we were both dying today, what a funny coincidence!”

He knows he’s being an asshole. He knows that he’s needlessly being a complete dick, but right now the only thing keeping him from collapsing and sobbing until it literally kills him is a fire burning in his veins, anger and wrath and  _desperation_.

Something— someone has to be to blame.

(Because if nothing is, that means this is all just chance, that his life is ending because he was simply dealt a bad hand, that nothing ever mattered and that he was never in control—)

The pause stretches out, and a hope that she’ll just hang up on him builds in his chest. The wind howls outside.

And then he hears it, barely a whisper, so quiet it nearly isn’t real.

“Do you think this is easy?” Her voice is so venomous that it leaves him flinching. “No,  _really._  Do you think that this is easy?

“You think you’re special?  You think you’re the first person to ever find out they’re going to die?” She laughs. “I do this every day. Every. Fucking. Day.  My job is to give people the worst and  _last_ news they’ll ever get in their whole lives,” she says lowly. “Don’t you  _dare_ treat me like that.”

Shame and guilt, though muted, sweep through his veins (he’s messed it up,  _just like always_ ). It flushes out the fury, the anger. In its wake is sorrow, of course, a bitter sense of self-defeat, but more than anything he just feels… blank. Gray.

The quiet returns. He hears breathing, the harsh gasps of his own and the smooth, even rhythm of the herald. The ceiling fan twirls above, unbothered, and his eyes follow the blades as they move.

(Maybe he can just do this until he finally kicks the bucket.)

The silence is deafening.

“Why?”

Another pause.

“Why what?” she asks, weary. Her voice has lost its edge, its sternness.     

“Why any of it?” he says. “I’m a— I’m a  _kid_.” Funny, as he’s always resented being called that. “I’m only in college. I have friends—” though not that many “—and an entire life ahead of me—” how bright can it really be? “—so why the hell is any of this fair?”

Bitterly, she replies, “ _Life_ isn’t fair.”

A laugh escapes him.

Yeah, he knows that better than anyone.

“But  _why_?” He grips the phone so tightly he fears it will break. “If life is so unfair that we’re all going to get screwed over by it eventually, what’s even—”

His voice sticks to his throat.  

_What’s even the point?_

_Why do we even try_?

She sighs.

“I don’t know.” Exhaustion drips from her words.

“Yeah, I don’t know, kid. Which is stupid, you know, because shit, how long have I had this job, and I still can’t answer that question? I don’t, okay.  I don’t know.”

Perhaps the response should stir some sort of reaction inside of him, but everything just feels cold.

The herald continues, “I’ve told parents that their children are dying. Kids younger than you that they’re as good as dead. Just yesterday I had to tell a family that their ten-year-old was going to die.” She laughs. “And I couldn’t even feel  _bad_ about it. I just sat there and listened and did nothing as they pleaded with me to somehow help them.”

His body feels heavy and numb and chilled.  

“So yeah, you know what? I really don’t know.”

Static crackles over the phone line.  Slumped against his bed, he watches the fan turn above head, listens to the myriad of sounds that are carried through the window on cool air. Keith is hyper-aware of his breathing, filling his ( _dead)_ lungs in and out and in and out.

( _What’s even the point_?)

He hears a weary sigh.

“Keith, I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours you’ll be meeting an untimely death,” she says.  Her voice is dull, automatic. Scripted.

( _just as dead as him_ )

Axca drawls through the rest of the herald script: the events and opportunities available to him today, the process for applying for a funeral if need be, the tombstone or cremation procedures.

His mind is a swamp, and the information drowns in it.

“And finally, on behalf of all of us here at Death-Cast, we are so sorry to lose you.  Live the day to the fullest.”

He hangs up before she finishes.

( _out of time_ )

The phone (s _tupid, stupid, stupid goddamn phone Christ_ )  _thumps_ against the carpet. He draws his knees to his chest.

Keith Kogane cries.

 

**12:11 AM**

The boy in the mirror has sickly pale skin and blotchy cheeks and swollen eyes.  

Dead.

There is no energy left to laugh; in its place is a slight huff of air, rattling through his sore lungs. He squashes down the sobs still lingering in his chest.  

A quiet, terrifying  _stillness_ lingers in the air.  Keith is acutely aware that at any given moment he could quite literally drop dead; he could trip on the bathroom tile and crack his head open or suffer from an aneurysm or get shocked by the microwave.

He could stay seated on the dirty carpet of his bedroom for the entire day and it would still end the same way.

Keith feels like he’s a kid again, seated in the principal’s office and waiting for his impending doom.

Hissing, he scrubs at his eyes. The piping in the walls creaks and shutters as the water shuts off.

 They always meant to have the plumbing in his bathroom fixed—in their entire apartment, for that matter— but what with university for Keith and Shiro’s job…  

The air is punched from his lungs.

A sharp, stinging pain wrings out his chest. Knees buckling, he keels forward, nearly hitting his head against the vanity.   

Shit.

 _Shit_.

Keith will be the first to tell you that he’s never been good at anything  _friend_ related. He’s incapable of holding a conversation and he supposes he’s never had the firm desire to have a wide array of companions like so many around him have.

He’s perfectly content with the three or so people that regularly circulate through his life.

(Four, if you want to count when Matt barges into the apartment.)

Shiro.

His brother, the guy who’s too nice for his own damn good and is the polar opposite of the walking  _mess_ that is Keith Kogane.  Put-together, capable, likable. Has a plan for the future--  _always_ has a plan. And Allura, Shiro’s best friend from high school and the permanent fixture in their apartment who loves to make his life utter hell, but he still holds the utmost trust in. (Not that he’d ever tell her that.)

Oh, and there’s Adam, of course, just as smart and kind and confident and makes Shiro so  _goddamn happy_.

Before them, he was just an angry kid with no future. No anything.  Shiro and Allura, who worked so hard to rip him from the pit he had drowned in for so, so long.  And Adam, who never probed for answers and accepted everything--  _everything_ , including the blank faces and short comments and  _anger_ \-- with a warm smile

They wouldn’t leave his side.

God, as soon as he would tell them, they wouldn’t leave his goddamn side.  

Keith scours the skin of his cheeks until they are red and raw.  Until they are so numb and patchy that they threaten to bleed. When he’s finished, his hands grip the sides of the sink as to hide their shaking, so tightly his knuckles go white.

They invested so much time into making him something useful and something semi-capable and something  _decent_.  He wouldn’t be anything without their help.

And here he is, still in college, still trying, and throwing everything down the drain.

He can’t face them knowing that he took everything they worked on, every goddamn thing, and that just like always— just like  _fucking_ always— he was messing it all up.

Shiro and Adam were on a date, tonight, a rare, opportune event in their busy lives. Dinner, they said, they wouldn’t be back tonight, they said.

Fine with him, as he had studying and notes to catch up on.

(He very carefully did not wonder  _why_ they were staying at Adam’s place as opposed to their own.)

And Allura, of course, had tried to wrangle him into doing something tonight, too (and by wrangle he means bombarding him with texts and calling him until his voicemail box was flooded)-- but he really did have a lot of work to catch up on.

All of them…

They were so…  _good._

And what did he have to show?

( _burden, he can’t be a burden, he won’t be, he’ll get better he has to be better--_ )

 _Pathetic_ , the boy in the mirror says.  _You are completely and utterly pathetic._

The tile is chilled beneath him and his throat burns raw as the contents of his stomach spill into the toilet.

**12:18 AM**

The scene is the exact same as it was a near hour ago— window cracked open,  _Introduction to Number Theory_ splayed out on his bed, a tattered notebook full of illegible notes accompanying it.

There’s even an indentation in the duvet where he had been sitting.

Here he had been, totally oblivious, his biggest worries finishing the project due at the end of the month and passing the quiz he has—  _had_?— next week.  

His gaze drifts to his backpack, slumped against his bed frame, and its contents within.

Maybe he could burn them….?

Maybe that’s how he’ll go out, in a blazing, academia-spurred ball of flames.

After all, who even needs statistics and number theory textbooks?  

(Certainly not him anymore.)

But then Shiro would have to pay for the fees (they’re the cheapest, ripped up rentals he could find and yet still so expensive), and burdening his brother even more than he already has and already will be is at the bottom of his list of things he wants to do before he dies.

(He swallows thickly. Keith is not going to cry again.)

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, spending the time he doesn’t have left contemplating the fate of his university textbook when he should be…  

Well, it’s not like he’s thought about this before. Dying, yes, but what he’d  _do beforehand_...

 _Maybe he shouldn’t be doing one last shotty attempt at cleaning his room,_ says the voice in his mind.  _Maybe he shouldn’t be attempting to prolong the inevitable._

His eyes stray to the floor, where that damn phone sits.

He squeezes them shut.

Maybe a pile of ratty, scribbled-in books shouldn’t be his parting gift to his brother.

(and there is the  _voice_ , laughing, a low hiss that never leaves,  _failure, you have been and you always will be,_ it says,  _did you really think you could be anything else?_ always there, always  _always always_ )

 

**12:19 AM**

He stacks the books in a neat pile on the corner of his desk.

 

**12:25 AM**

There is too much here. Too much familiarity making him sick to his stomach, his mouth dry. The walls reek of memories that are far too painful to remember.  More bitter than sweet, like shattered stained glass, burning him from the inside-out.

He cannot stay in the apartment.

A voice in his mind screams in protest; outside is the unknown, where a million and one ways to die await him.

But to be frank, dying in the apartment would  _suck_ , where either his body would be left for Shiro to find or he’d have to face him the next day.

Yeah.  Not happening.  

So he throws on the ratty shoes he got for his eighteenth birthday, shoves his wallet into his pocket.

And the phone, of course, the  _phone_.

He can’t text them or call  _them—_  he can’t even open up the otherwise empty notes app to write something down.  A messy form of a last letter, a will.

His fingers go rigid and his mind blank.

( _coward_ )

Keith gives one last look to the main room, drinks in the slightly sweet scent from the candles always lit on the kitchen counter.

He pauses, contemplating, before digging into his pocket and throwing his keys onto the coffee table.  

It’s not like he needs them anymore.

The door slams shut behind him.  

 

* * *

 

**LANCE**

**12:30 AM**

 

You know, he’s always felt like that the “pretty crier” persona or whatever the hell was pretty freaking stupid.

Like, for example, this one time in high school, when his crazy ass lit teacher whips out a short story about this guy lusting over some lady and  _cool,_ whatever, nothing new (because of course  _every_ single story seems to be about guys who can’t keep it in their pants, right).  But then he goes into this whole depth about how  _pretty_ and  _beautiful_ this chick is when she’s crying.

And it’s creepy and gross and of course they’re supposed to annotate it and analyze how beautifully poetic it is because again, crazy ass lit teacher.

Of  _course_ Lance didn’t do it-- and okay, granted, Lance had a habit of not doing a lot of homework in high school, but he really had a strong desire not to do this assignment in particular.

Because, look, okay, hear him out, how do you look at someone in their most vulnerable state, when they’re sobbing and sad and uncontrollable, and think  _oh hot damn I’d hit that_?

(And Hunk says he’s not romantic.)

He finds that the very idea of someone crying as contradictory to beauty.   He’s always despised the tragic motif, that supposed elegant grace of a tragedy.

Or maybe Lance is just biased because he’s never really liked crying. And yeah,  _no one_ likes crying, but he’s always held a strong, strong hate for it.

“Lance?  Lance, do you understand?”

It’s just  _gross_.  All the snot and red splattered cheeks and when your shirt collar gets soaked with tears—-  _yuck_.

“I need you to confirm for me that you understand, okay? Are you with me, Lance?” the voice on the other end of the phone says.

Nyma is staring at him from behind the counter.  Her jaw is dropped and her eyes are wide, defined pity contorting her features.

 _Ugh_ , how pathetic does he look right now?

“Lance?”

“Um, yeah.” His voice stutters over the words, cracking. God, he probably looks like such an idiot right now. “Loud and clear.”

The other customers loitering about the convenience store are giving him the same looks as Nyma, though they don’t bother to hide their nervous glances to their pockets and purses, their pursed lips and hunched shoulders.   

It’s bad luck to be within the vicinity of someone who’s getting the Call, after all.  

(Ha. That rhymed.)

Most of his Friday nights are spent dicking around with Pidge and Hunk and getting into trouble like nobody’s business.  They’re like the three musketeers of doing dumb shit, and hey, you know what? It’s kind of amazing.

Usually, that is, and tonight is shaping out to be something very, very unusual.

(He shoves away the runaway thought that tonight is probably going to be his  _last_ night.)

Pidge and Hunk, being the giant nerds that they are, have this weekend-long trip that was offered to all the students in the engineering departments.

So here’s how Lance found himself alone in the  _7-Eleven_ only a few blocks away from work, planning on… well, he didn’t really know, but you know sometimes those were the best nights because you never know where the hell they’re going— _anyways,_  he’s charming Nyma, who like always, is working behind the counter with this cute little smile and she’s firing back to all of his flirtatious comments with her own ( _and yet he never lands a date_ ) and the light that’s always flickering overhead is flickering and the permanently broken AC is rattling and then his phone rings.

Which.  Usually wouldn’t be such an issue. Actually, usually it would be a good thing, either Pidge or Hunk or his family or a possible date prospect, all of whom would be a pleasant surprise that would give him something to do.

Except.  Except most phone calls don’t make his eyes sting because as long as he’s remembered, Lance cries so easily (biased,  _biased_ ) and wouldn’t make Nyma look at him like  _that_ and definitely wouldn’t result in a giant  _splat_ as the older woman about to get in line dropped a jug of milk against the cracked linoleum.

Seriously.  _Seriously_?

Fucking  _Death-Cast_?

He would rather be forced to call his aunt every day for like… the rest of his life if it meant not hearing that jingle fill the air, the  _Hello, I’m calling from Death-Cast, is Lance there…_?

(Don’t look at him like that.  Aunt Valeria is literally satan incarnate.)

“How’re you doing?” the herald, Florona, says over the line. It’s a break in the long, cluttered speech of information that he had been drowning in.

He really hates that question.  Nobody asks that question unless they already know the answer to it.

After a pause, in which his throat tightens and the thin, wet sheen covering his eyes wavers and he is unable to provide a decent answer, she continues in a soft voice, “It’s okay to  _not_ be okay, Lance.  Especially in a time like this.”

And that? That’s  _not okay_. Him being not okay is not okay because right now, he really, really needs to be, because god forbid he breaks down in the middle of this goddamn _7-Eleven_ for everyone to see— for  _Nyma_ to see— so he’s going to very carefully obliterate that advice into the stars.

He needs to be okay. He really, really needs to be okay right now.

(Lance needs to  _not cry_ , because if he does start then he won’t stop, and everyone will see and Nyma will see and  _HE REALLY DOESN’T NEED TO CRY RIGHT NOW, OKAY?_ )

Florona rattles on, something he’s not really paying attention to about letting himself go today, not being afraid to feel before, before sometime within the next twenty-four-- hell, twenty-three -- hours he’ll be--

Nope.  _Mmmm_ nope, not gonna think about it.

“You get it?”

(not in the slightest)

“...yeah.”

To be frank, at this moment in time he really doesn’t  _care_ , but if he’s not focusing on what she’s saying then he knows his brain will run rampant with the knowledge of— of what is going to happen to him.

So Lance clings to her words, lets each one roll through his brain and get processed one, two, three times, chewing them out and savoring their meaning.  She talks about discounts available at stores and restaurants, the attractions in the city he has access to, the willingness of the Death-Cast agency to assist in any additional last requests.

And the whole funeral thing—

The only time he’s ever been to one was his great aunt’s as a kid.  Death-Cast had just become a  _thing_ and suddenly being alive at your own funeral was a  _thing_ and he just remembers the sorrow and the rain and the pain of seeing his mother cry.

(Oh God  _Mom_ , how the hell does he face his goddamn  _mother_ —)

Cool! Another thought he can squash into oblivion.

Florona asks for another confirmation, and even though he has never understood anything less in his life (and he failed Music Appreciation twice in high school), he gives another garbled hum.

“Do you... have any questions?”

He opens his mouth, closes it. Pauses.  He doesn’t trust himself enough not to burst into tears.

And yet--

Well, he has to ask, doesn't he?

“How do you guys know?” he says.

He sees Nyma flinch behind the counter.  The bell on the door rings as someone hurries outside.

“I mean, you have to know, right? Like, you can’t not know.” He and Pidge and Hunk used to spend hours coming up with ideas in the early hours of the morning.  There are theories all around the internet about them. He remembers reading them, curious and intrigued but that was it, simple fasication, so small in comparison to the burning want-- _need_ \-- to know right now.

“I’m not privileged with that information, Lance.  No one is.”

“So what, you just have a-- a list?  They give you a list of people who’re going to--” he chokes. “You just get some  _list_ or whatever and that’s that? No questions asked?”

Is that all his life is worth? A name on a sheet of paper?  A few characters on a computer screen?

Nyma is ashen under the fluorescent lights. Old Woman Milk Dropper looks like she’s about the faint, pale as the puddle on the floor.

In her defense, Florona’s voice is sympathetic:

“I’m afraid I can’t share any details concerning Death-Cast’s process, Lance.” She pauses, something careful, before continuing, “Not even the heralds know how it works.  How  _anyone_  can know. Just that… someone does, and that they’re right. Always right.”

That they’re  _right_.

That he’s going to--

 _He’s going to_ \--

“Is there... anything else?”

You know, actually, a lot, like why the heck this is happening to him and how the hell he’s supposed to call his mom-- his own  _mother_ \-- and tell her and his dad and his sister and brothers and nieces and nephews that  _fun fact everybody Lance-- you know Lance, right?-- is dying_ , and Pidge and Hunk, who’ll have to go out on Friday’s alone now, _he’s nineteen, please for the love of God this cannot be happening._

 _A Classic McClain Freak-Out_ , as Pidge would so eloquently put it, is ripping through his chest, desperate to escape.  He feels it rattling against his rib cage, bursting from his lungs, burning the back of his throat: the energy has been building and building and building and--

 _Don’t you dare_.

Florona, seemingly taking his silence as an answer, is spouting something about having a day left to live and that she’s so sorry and that he should do all that he can while he can. Her voice is airy and pitches and flows in a way he’d usually find charming; now, however, the sympathy makes him want to vomit all across the floor, right next to the milk puddle.

“--and Lance, I’m sorry, I really, really am, but I have other calls to make tonight,” she says. “But know that on behalf of everyone here at Death-Cast, we’re so sorry to lose you, okay?”

To  _lose_ you.

“Make sure you live this day to the very fullest.  You still have life left to live, Lance.”

He thinks he responds, but he can’t be too sure.

Nyma is still watching him as he pockets the phone, sways on his feet, and desperately fights back the tears--  _crap crap crap_ \-- that threaten to spill across his cheeks.

Her bottom lip is quivering and her dark eyes seem suspiciously wet.

Which.  Is stupid. Not  _Nyma_ , just the fact that she’s about to cry.  Crying. Crying about him. Crying because--

His thoughts shutter to a halt.  Lance clenches his jaw, teeth grating together like they’re going to shred each other to bits of bone. The silence is oppressive, bitter, choking the breath from his lungs.

His eyes drift to the puddle and empty jug on the floor. He blinks slowly. Glances at Milk Woman, who visibly recoils.   

“Um, clean-up on aisle four?”

Nyma chokes, and the AC rattles as Milk Woman faints.

 

**12:33 AM**

She’s watching him.  Nyma is watching him, and in most cases, that would certainly be a win in his book, raising a burning hope in his chest that maybe  _today it’ll actually lead somewhere and he’ll land a date_ \-- but now he feels nothing but sickening vertigo that threatens to sweep him off his feet.

After checking to make sure Milk Woman didn’t crack her head open after collapsing onto the tile (she didn’t) and helping her to her feet as she apologized a bazillion times and he had to give a bazillion “ _don’t apologize and I’m fine_ ”’s in return (he wasn’t) and ignoring the way Nyma acted as if she were slapped when he asked if she had anything to sop up the mess on the ground with, Lance found himself hunched over slick tile, mop in hand.

Nyma watched him as she brought out the paper towels from the back room.  Nyma watched him as Milk Woman fumbled for words to say, hands ghosting over his form as if she owed him something.  Nyma watched him as she rang up the old woman (compensating for the milk) and the other few who had been loitering around (who rather pointedly refused to look at him).

And Nyma is watching him now, probably a pitiful sight in the empty store, as he mops the grimy floor.

There’s an itch beneath his skin telling him to  _movemovemove_ , but his fingers are clenching around the handle and his brain is focused on the lines in the tile and the  _McClain Freakout_ is simmering quietly beneath his skin.  

(He’s reached that state where he really, really should be freaking out, and yet it feels as if he’s slowly moving along, cotton shoved inside his skull.)

“I feel like I probably shouldn’t be making you do that.”

Christ, it’s not like he’s a  _vase_ or something.  He can still use a mop.

He scoffs.  “You’re not making me do anything.”

“Still.”

He knows she means it as  _still_ , you’re the customer and I’m the employee, and he wants to  _accept_ that, but he can’t help but think about all the times he’s been in this store since moving here when that relationship has been relatively void.

Still.

Still, Lance, you’re still--

God, what is he doing?    

The AC, the damp mop against the ground, his sneakers scuffing against the tile.

And she’s watching him, dark eyes dissecting him like he’s a frog on the lab table, except there’s no Hunk here to vomit and stop the class before little froggy can get put under the knife.

“Lance, what’re you doing?”

He pauses.

“Like, you’re mopping up a puddle of skim milk. Of skim, Lance.”

His lips purse thin.

“...I  _hate_ skim milk,” he says quietly.

“You  _hate_ skim milk!” Her eyes are blown wide. “Dude,  _you hate_ skim milk,” she whispers. “Shit, Lance.”

Okay, he’s confused. Which isn’t exactly rare.  But he’s confused. His face probably expresses said confusion, judging by the way she laughs again, leaning over the counter.

“ _That_ , Lance.  What you’re doing.”

“What?”

“Making jokes! Making me laugh! Cleaning up spilled milk in a  _7-Eleven_ at like one in the morning.” She gives a smile, but it’s all sharp ends and curiosity.  Nyma has this really, breathtakingly beautiful face with narrow features and narrow eyes, almost like a cat, focused on his every movement. “Skim. Skim fucking milk.”

He blinks slowly.

“Like, who gets off of their call from Death-Cast--” he flinches “-and cracks a  _joke_ , Lance?”

His mouth feels dry, and his eyes are glued to the floor.

“...a dumbass?” His voice cracks.

( _Don’t you dare give out now, stupid tear ducts_ \--)

She lets out another laugh, but it’s a morbid sound, tinged with something he can’t quite place.

An ad is blaring softly from the radio.  It slows to silence as she twists the volume dial all the way around, muttering something under her breath.  

“Dude,” she says, after another pause, “what’re you going to do?”

Well  _damn_ if he knows.

“You have your friends-- what’re there names, Punk? Pidge?” Her nails tap against the counter. “Are you… are you going to call them?”  

His lips purse thin.

Right about now, his two best pals are probably stuffed in a hotel room with two other (probably smelly) engineering students, passed out after being shoved into a van with even more (definitely smelly) engineering students for hours on end.  They had texted him right before ten about their curfew.

They’re… they’re so far away from him right now, physically, mentally.

And God, not to mention his family, who are literally across the  _ocean_.

It’s late.  He knows that his mother doesn’t let anyone have their phones on them when it’s bedtime.  

He knows that if he called now, it’d go straight to voicemail… and that-- that would  _kill_  her.  Seeing his name, seeing  _recent call from Lance_ , maybe finding out that he was already--  _no no no_ \--  _already_ , already and she had missed it, she hadn’t picked up her phone--

He can’t.

Morning… he’ll do it in the morning.

(a traitorous voice in his mind is there, whispering  _if you last that long, of course_ )

“Yeah,” he finally says. “I will.”

It feels like a lie in his mouth, but if Nyma notices she doesn’t say anything.

She tosses him a yellow  _WET FLOOR_ sign and takes away the mop and bucket. He originally was going to grab something to eat, but oddly enough, his appetite is nowhere to be found.

Still, he settles for grabbing a pack of  _M &M_’ _s._ The pretzel kind, obviously, which are objectively the best kind, thank you very much.  

And when Nyma attempts to put them on the house, he finds himself protesting so vehemently (okay,  _he can pay for himself, thanks_ ) his cheeks flush.

She doesn’t say anything, but the question is there--  _what are you planning on doing_ \-- and as much as he would love to stay inside the safety of the convenience store with Nyma as a companion for the rest of his time, some part of him is telling him to  _move_.

She’s frowning, thoughtful, watching him as he approaches the foggy glass doors.

“Lance…” she begins, shifting on her feet, “you’re-- you’re a good person, you know that? And I’m not just saying that because… I’m not just saying that.”

And she smiles again, something Lance has never, in all his time of knowing her, seen the girl express.

Something soft and something rueful and something  _sad_.  

“Don’t face it alone, Lance.  You deserve as much.”

 

**12:42 AM**

He ends up sitting on a bench not too far from Nyma and the convenience store after realizing how  _unsafe_ he currently is and also how much he really, really, really doesn’t want to think about why.

Tonight is cold. The wind is brisk, nipping at his skin. The seat beneath him is damp and the chill seeps through his jeans.

He never did get used to the cold.

Cars pass through the street before him as blurs of blinding lights, streaking across the pitch black night and sending jolts of fear straight to his heart because  _hey, okay, do you guys know what a speed limit is_? The warmth and familiarity of the  _7-Eleven_ seems like, super freaking inviting right now, but he knows--  _he knows he knows he knows_ \-- that he shouldn’t go back, because then he won’t ever leave.

Okay, also, Lance is pretty freaking sure there’s a raccoon lurking around, too, waiting to nibble on his toes.

 _Shhhhh, focus, brain_.

His phone is heavy in his hand. An ugly feeling twists in his gut.  

 _Don’t face it alone_.

He frowns.

The  _Last Friends_ app was developed shortly after Death-Cast was.  Of course, the variations of said app that followed its creation are as numerous as the stars, but all share the exact same goal as the original: to bring together people who’ve all received the same stupid, crappy call on the same stupid, crappy night.

(There’s also a lot of volunteers, too, the people who are perfectly fine and healthy and have all the time in the world and are willing to be an open ear to anyone who needs it.)

His fingertips waver as the login screen loads.

To give someone the last friend they’ll ever make.

( _We are over the tears, McClain_.)

He probably has a few errands to run tonight, now that he really thinks about it.  Stuff  _wayyy_ more productive than him freezing his butt off on this bench.

And yet--

Okay, it’s kind of stupid, but he’s always hated being alone.  Since he was a kid, something about being by himself makes his skin crawl and shoulders clench, like it’s impossible for him to be comfortable. And he really should be over it by now because he's basically an adult and adults don't get afraid of an empty apartment.

He hisses.

 _Gah._ Okay, he can do this.  He  _should_ do this. Lance squashes down the hesitation, inputting the university email he got freshmen year. And the stupid code thing that proves he’s not a robot-- god, why the hell would anyone  _pretend_ to be--

Ugh.

Okay. Hey, remember, not thinking about it?

He rubs at his eyes as the app begins to load.

Take it slow.  Take it nice, take it slow, don’t freak yourself out, don’t  _think about it._  Screw ripping it off quick like a bandaid, let it come slowly, take tiny, tiny, tiny baby steps.

The app loads.

And  _oh_ , of  _course_ he is immediately slapped in the face with a notification welcoming him to the app, asking him about his  _status_ , in some cheery font that is somehow supposed to alleviate what exactly they’re asking.

(AKA, are you about to bite the bullet or not, are you using the app to lend a very alive and safe and healthy shoulder for some poor sap to cry on, or are you the sorry soul who’s celebrating their last day alive?)

Well crapolla.

 

**12:43**

_Welcome to Last Friend, Lance.  We are terribly sorry to be losing you today_.

 

* * *

 

**KEITH**

**12:56 AM**

 

“Okay then, let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

Keith isn’t sure what expression shows on his face, but judging by the tight smile and pinched eyes of the waiter as he backs away from his booth, it’s probably something that Shiro would call  _unapproachable._

At the very least, it insinuates that he doesn’t look like some pitiful kid who just bawled his eyes out.

Whatever.  Not his focus right now.

 _This is stupid._   _This is incredibly stupid, and so is he._

What’s stupid is the fact that his feet carried him into this diner despite the fact that he really isn’t hungry, and that he really has no clue what he’s doing, and that he’s twenty-three or so hours, at most, away from dying.

It all comes back to the phone.

( _stupid stupid stupid stupid_   _phone_ )

Perhaps the only plus side about literally using his cell when only positively necessary is that it has godly battery life.  He’s been messing around on it for twenty plus minutes at this point and the little icon in the top right corner has only changed a few percent.

Now, his mounting frustration, on the other hand...

 

**master.varkon:**

_hey big boy how r u feerling_

 

Oh, he’s feerling just great. Just fantastic.  If he receives another message from somebody trying to get into the pants of a dying kid, he’s gonna be even better, you know?

Jesus fucking Christ, this was a horrible decision.

He has no business using the  _Last Friends_ app.  But his body, lost in a haze, mind waterlogged and fishing for something to do, went on autopilot.  Walk until you reach the diner. Order the first thing you see on the menu.

You get a call from Death-Cast, what’s the next logical thing to do?

By the time he was able to grasp the reigns of control within his brain, he was already in the process of creating his profile.

He shouldn’t have continued.  He should have gone to his home screen and deleted the app without a second thought.  Then he wouldn’t have to be subjected to this shit.

 _Last Friend_ is like a dating app, sort of, just a whole lot more depressing. Which is saying something.

Scroll through the profiles of those with accounts in your area, send messages to contact them, wait to see what happens.

He  _thought_ he set his parameters pretty clearly: someone around his age and someone who isn’t looking to hook up in his final hours of being alive, and a person who's either also dying or just a volunteer on the app who wants to lend a comforting shoulder, he doesn't really mind.  

Apparently not.

Two horndogs (if memory serves, there’s an app called  _Last Fling_ specifically for  _that_ purpose), one boy who isn’t dying today but really, really wants to know what it feels like to find out you’re going to die, and another girl who actually seems to be pretty nice, but lives like three hours away.

This is all more than likely a sign that this was a horrible, horrible decision.

( _you just want to mess something up for someone one last time, don’t you, keith?_ )

Shit.

It’s like the apartment, stuffy and tight and compressing.  His jacket feels like it’s melting onto his skin.

Frustration stains his cheeks, and he ducks his head onto the table.

( _god, you idiot_ )

Maybe it was that stupid little bit of hope inside of his chest that has no business being alive and really needs to  _shut up_ , the same little bit that whispered  _maybe it was a mistake maybe it was a wrong number maybe you aren’t dying_ back in the apartment, something that convinced him he could get to talk to someone tonight and get that magical experience you hear about in movies and in books where people get their perfect little ending with their last friend but--

But that’s not how Keith’s life works, okay?

( _did you really think_ )

He doesn’t get that.  He doesn’t get nice things.

Keith doesn’t get nice things because Keith mangles and destroys and obliterates nice things.

( _you don’t deserve them_ )

The table is chilled against his burning cheek.  A sharp contrast, somewhat uncomfortable, but he can’t bring himself to move.

The surface hums as his phone vibrates with a notification.

And in classic, Kogane fashion, the tide of anger and acceptance welling up inside of him peaks sharply, filling the back of his mouth with foam and creating a sheen over his eyes.  He’s wrathful, upset, furious, and the sorrow from less than an hour ago, the dank and dark apartment full of shadows and memories, feels like a distant stranger.

His head whips up.  Keith grabs the phone, prepared to tell  _master.varkon_ or whoever to fuck off straight to hell.

 

 ** _lance_mcool_  ** **has sent you a message!**

 

He pauses, but the glare is still present as he unlocks his phone.

 

**lance_mcool:**

_uh hi_

_sorry if this is weird im not used to this_

_i mean no one really is tho, righ haha_

_oh i mean i guess there r ppl who do this a lot_

_oh okay sorry this is bad_

_i just saw that you live in the city and you go to Altea U???_

 

Keith blinks slowly at the onslaught of information, befuddlement dispersing his cloud of rage.  He clicks the icon at the top of the screen.

Lance McClain.  Nineteen. Lives in the city, is an art student at Altea University.  The little red checkmark next to his name reveals himself to be within the same boat as Keith.

Huh.  He even fits within the boy’s  _What I’m Looking for Section_.  Around his age, within the city… and maybe Keith qualifies as a “ _chill person to chill with_ ”.

He lets out a hiss through his teeth, chapped lips pulling thin.

This… isn’t good.  He shouldn’t click reply and he shouldn’t even bother, he should just delete the app, he shouldn’t he shouldn’t he shouldn’t--

 

**keith01532:**

_Hello._

_Yeah. You too_?

 

(B _AD BAD CHOICE KOGANE,_ an alarm blares in his mind,  _BAD CHOICE)_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_yeah!!_

_im a sophmore_

_r u a senior then lol?_

 

He hesitates ( _back out while you still can_ ), before writing:

 

**keith01532:**

_No, a junior._

 

**lance_mcool:**

_oh okay thats chill_

_in bath lol?_

_*bath_

_BATH_

_METH_

_*M A TH_

_srry its cold outside ny fingers r numb haha_

 

His brow furrows.  

 

**keith01532:**

_You’re fine._

_Why are you outside_?

_And yes, I’m a math major._

 

**lance_mcool:**

_great question why ami out side_

_it is vry gold_

_COLD_

_dont have gloves_

_gloves dont work with phones tho_

_unless u have the special kind u know_

_witht eh weird fingers_

 

He doesn’t know how to respond to that.  

 

**lance_mcool:**

_im sorry im rambling_

_idd what im doing im usually good at this_

_*idk_

_just not use to thsi sort of thig u know?_

 

**keith01532:**

_Yeah_

 

 _Yes,_ Keith is suddenly  _acutely_ aware that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, either. Which… isn’t exactly unusual, but now more than ever he finds himself a fish washed up to land, gasping for air and any semblance of understanding of what’s going on.

Before he can strangle out a text, however, his screen lights up.

 

**lance_mcool:**

_theres a lot of creepy ppl inner h know_

_*on here u_

_don't get me wrong j think that the app is super cool_

_like goodcool u know_

_like does good!_

_but also a lot of rowers_

_weitdos_

_WEIRDOS_

_ugh srry_

_just like nasty ew_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_oh im sorry im doing it again_

 

**keith01532:**

_It’s okay_

_You’re an art student?_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_YUP_

_that me, the art boy_

_oh! srry we got off topiv before_

_youre a MATH student??_

 

He frowns, brow furrowing.

 

**keith01532:**

_Yes._

 

Keith doesn’t know where to go, what to add. Shit, he’s really not good at this.

(At least panic is better than anger or sadness, maybe?)

 

**lance_mcool:**

_i am bad at math_

_lke ok but not the best_

_kidding im really bad haha_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_oahs fo m a KL:S GN :_

_OH CRAP_

 

What…?

He waits for the correction to come, but all he’s given is the three floating dots before they disappear beneath the undecipherable semblance of a text he just sent.  

A storm of possible scenarios takes over his thoughts as he is given a bout of radio silence.

Keith shifts uncomfortably in the booth as the seconds tick by.

This kid isn’t… dying right now, is he?

 

**lance_mcool:**

_OH MYG :IUSGdg_

_THR RACOYB_

_RACOON_

 

And what the fuck does that mean?

He stares at the keyboard at the bottom of the screen, wondering what the  _fuck_ he’s supposed to say to that-- what the fuck is he supposed to say at all, this kid is literally insane.

 

**lance_mcool:**

_I SAW IT SCURRY_

_RACCOON OUTTA THE TRSSG CAN_

 

This is why he doesn’t talk to people, because shit like this always seems to happen.

 

**keith01532:**

_Are you okay_?

 

**lance_mcool:**

_I CAN HEAR IT In ThiS ALLEY_

_WHY DR THERE REACOONS IN THIS CITY_

_it is COLD andthere ;is a raccoon ytying to eat me_

_trying_

 

**keith01532:**

_What?_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_raccoon_

_pops outta the the trashcan like one of those_

_ugh what are tey called_

_john in the boxes_

 

**keith01532:**

_Jack_?

 

**lance_mcool:**

_no lance_

_oh_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_OHH_

_YES_

_jack in the box_

_but like a RACOON IN THE BOX_

_grabs like a fricken dorito bag off the sidewalk_

_runs right across my toes_

_its cold andmy hands hurt_

 

Like, what the actual  _fuck_. Who is this kid. What is he doing.

What is Keith doing?

 

**keith01532:**

_Go inside?_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_no can do_

_not really a lot of options_

_there’s a wxing plce right behind me_

_get my legs nice and smooth for the racoon to munch on right_

 

Yeah, he really, really doesn’t know how to respond to that. The fog in his brain is different, now, less clouded anger and desperation and more…  _confusion_.

He doesn’t know how to handle conversation with a  _normal_ person, let alone the ramblings and spiels that this guy is shoving down his throat. And he tries to think about what Allura or Shiro would do or say in this situation (and ignores the way his heart clenches), but his mind is blanking.

_Be nicer, be kind, be patient._

Yeah, easier said than done.

 

**lance_mcool:**

_hey ok im sry for kinda being all over the place_

_nerves and all ahaha_

_but weve already talked about that_

_ahd i really dont know what im doing or what the protcal is_

_but im cold ha but better_

_sorrry rabling again_

_where are u?_

 

He glances up.  His waiter is flitting about the many booths within the diner, and the woman standing behind the counter yells something back to the kitchen.  They always meant to try this place out, but never really had the time.

 

**keith01532**

_A diner_

_Castle Lion_

 

The three little dots float, disappear for a few seconds, then bounce to life.

 

**lance_mcool:**

_NO WAY FOR REAL??_

_LIKE WITH THE WHITE LION ON THE MENUS_

_KIND OF CLOSE TO ALT U_

 

**keith01532:**

_That’s the one_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_I LOVE THAT PLACE_

_MY FRIENDS AND I ALWAYS GO TO THAT PLACE_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_wait_

_ur there rn_

 

**keith01532:**

_Yes…?_

 

**lance_mcool:**

i

_i think im like ten minutes away_

_tops_

_i_

_we can meet up?_

 

**lance_mcool:**

_if thats ok?_

 

Is it?

Something says  _no, no not at all_ ,  _you’ve had your fill, Keith, drop him now, back away now, what are you even thinking?_

All of the other profiles within the area-- that is, within the city limits-- are all people trying to get under his skin or the boy who’s talking to him about  _what does it feel like, were you scared, sad,_ and fucking  _master.varkon_ who still won’t leave him alone.

( _don’t even look at any of them, just delete the app, wallow, and be done with it_ )

Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe this is the biggest mistake he’ll ever fucking make.

(Be logical. Reign yourself in, know where you fall.)

 

**keith01532:**

_Yeah that’s cool_

 

And if it’s a mistake, at least it’s the last one he’ll ever make? 

(He never was any good at following the rules.)

 

* * *

 

**SHIRO**

**1:07 AM**

 

“I feel a little bad,” he confesses, Adam’s heat seeping into his side.  “I kind of left him to Allura’s mercy.”

Shiro hears a snort, a huff of warm air. “Her what?”

He laughs.

There’s music thrumming through the air. Bright lights, cars zooming through the streets, a flow of people stumbling in and out of the doors of the bar behind them.

Shiro feels buzzed.  Pleasantly. A warmth is present in the corners of his thoughts, flushing his cheeks. It’s been a while since he’s allowed himself to just  _relax_ , and he has to admit, it feels good.  Like, really good.

It also probably helps that Adam has had trouble keeping his hands to himself since dinner.   

“He said he had school work to do tonight, right?” he hears. The wind is loud and blistering, tonight, cruel as they begin to walk to the car parked a few blocks away. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.  He knows how to hold his ground against Allura better than anyone.”

Shiro frowns. “I know, I know,” he says.  A car flies through the street, horn blaring.  Adam murmurs something and presses closer to his side. “You know her, though.  Once she gets an idea in her head, she can’t let it go.”

“Remind you of anyone?”

He snorts and rolls his eyes. “Unstoppable force meet immovable object.”

“Well, I was kind of talking about you.” He feels an elbow dig into his side.  “There’s a reason you and Allura have been friends for so long.”

“Oh,” Shiro begins, grinning, “so where do you fall into the equation, then?”

“I never said I wasn’t stubborn, Shirogane. I’m just more subtle about it.”  Adam hums. “You three like to barrel into things head first, but  _I_ know better.”

“You,” Shiro says, voice amused, “are insufferable.”

“And you love it.”

He can’t keep the giddy smile off of his face.

It really, really has been too long since they’ve done this.  He and Adam used to go out pretty frequently when they first starting dating how many years ago, but recently they’ve just been so  _busy_.

And it isn't to say that they didn’t see each other.  It was common for them to lounge around his apartment. Now, joined by Keith and Allura (and sometimes Matt), of course, but they still saw each other.

But a date… Shiro can’t remember the last time they’ve gone on one.

Yeah.  He feels really, really good right now.

(And yet…)

“You don’t need to worry, Takashi.”

He blinks slowly. “I’m not…  _worried_.”

Adam shushes him. “Yes, you are. You’re like, the biggest mother hen on the planet. Remember Keith’s first day freshman year of college?”

He groans. “Adam--”

“Don’t try to argue with me about this, because we both know I’m right. For whatever reason, you’re worried tonight, and you don’t need to be, because Keith doesn’t need you to be.”

Shiro sighs.

It’s not like he’s worrying about Keith because he’s alone tonight, because Keith is an adult now and can  _keep care of himself for a single night, obviously_ , and Shiro  _knows_ that, he knows that Adam is right, it’s just that…

Well, maybe he  _does_ worry all the time.

To be fair, he _is_ genuinely concerned about Allura. She probably badgered Keith about hanging out tonight for hours before finally backing off.

It’s in good nature, he knows, because Allura expresses her concern in her bulldozer fashion in the same way that he can’t help worry from seeping into his thoughts.

Shiro knows it’s not fair to Keith to be worrying about him so much for  _no good reason_ , but there’s something clenching in his chest and it just won’t let go.

He worries when Keith is alone.

Someone bumps into his side, and he stills.

It’s a kid, probably around Keith's age, and he reers away from Shiro like he’s been slapped.  It’s hard to see in the dark, but Shiro catches the shape of his tense shoulders, his anxiety-ridden expression.

“I--” the boy gapes, blinking, shifting on his feet. “Um, sorry.”

And he is gone, brushing passed them and hurrying down the sidewalk before Shiro can even say it back.

He frowns, glancing behind him.

“Don’t, Takashi,” Adam murmurs. “I know what you're thinking.”

“That kid just looked--”

“He looked like he has somewhere to be. And,” he continues, as they reach the car, “so do you and I.  So hand me the keys.”

The car is a refuge against the wind and the passenger seat is warm beneath him as it thrums to life, and the anxiety ebbs away to the sound of the radio.

 

**Author's Note:**

> adam is better than us all. 
> 
> uh, so another warning and clarification, this will end how the story suggests so far. im really excited to post this boy and i have a lot of (sad) future plans for it and i hope everyone enjoys :))


End file.
